


King of Cats, You've Made a Mess of Yourself

by forcevalentine



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, Angst and Romance, Daddy Issues, Fluff and Angst, IT'S THE TRAUMA, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Mommy Issues, References to Depression, Sad Ending, Sad Mercutio Hours, Self-Destruction, Tybalt doesn't have self respect, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:41:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26066671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forcevalentine/pseuds/forcevalentine
Summary: The five times that Tybalt Capulet was at his most vulnerable.
Relationships: Benvolio Montague/Tybalt, Juliet Capulet & Tybalt, Mercutio/Benvolio Montague/Tybalt, Mercutio/Tybalt (Romeo and Juliet)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	1. l'amore della madre

He is four years old when he meets his mother’s best friend, the woman who they say is his godmother, for the first time. Her name is something he cannot quite say, so he calls her  Signora as he does every other strange woman he meets.

But she tells him, her Italian rough as if she is not as familiar with the language as Tybalt is,  “Tybalt, you do not have to call me ‘Mrs.’ I am your family. Call me ‘Aunt.’”

It takes him a moment to try and understand what she has said, the way she forms her words makes it hard to understand. Her Italian sounds alien to him. His father says something in a weird language that sounds, in Tybalt’s opinion, like cars colliding with one another. 

He thinks it’s ugly, but something about it is almost familiar. He has heard his parents speak in the weird language before, and he understands just enough to know that his Father is saying,  “Your Italian is bad.”

When it finally does click with Tybalt that the woman wants him to call her  ‘Zia,’ he just nods. He has nothing else to offer her in conversation, and being four years old he refuses to pretend he does. 

He’s much more interested in the dog his new  zia brought with her.

It, like Tybalt, is very small. It almost reminds him of a cat, a very clumsy cat but a cat all the same.

So while the adults talk in their ugly language Tybalt takes the opportunity to approach the only thing in the room smaller than he is.

“Puppy,” he says softly in Italian, but the dog only looks nervous. If Tybalt were old enough to understand, he might realize that the dog is giving him a warning look. It does not want to be pet, it doesn’t like small hands. None of the adults have given him that warning though. 

“C’mere,” the young boy says as he eases closer to the dog, ignoring the low growl coming from deep within it. 

He does not understand that growls are not a sign of affection, he thinks them similar to a purr from a cat. 

His hand has barely grazed the dog when it bites him, turning into a flurry of white fur as it turns.

He pulls his hand back quickly, and can only sit stunned. He had never known a dog to bite someone, and because of this he does not realize he is hurt at first.

In fact, he does not register the pain at all until he hears his mother panicking. And then he sees the blood and the tears begin to fall. 

His mother takes him in her arms, and holds him close.

“Let Mama see, Tybalt. Let me see,” she says, her Italian smooth and much more comforting than the car crash language. 

Carefully he holds his bleeding wrist up for his mother to see and watches as she turns it every which way on their way to his parents’ bedroom.

“My love, it’s only a scratch. Stop crying, it’ll be better in a minute,” his mother tells him when she finally sets him down. She then leaves, but Tybalt isn’t worried. He knows she’ll come back. 

She always comes back. 

He wipes at his eyes with his uninjured hand, finally calming down.

When his mother returns she has a white box that he knows well. She brings it out when he falls off his tricycle, or when his father cuts himself with a seashell from the beach.

“See? It’s not too bad. No worse than a bruise you get from playing football,” his mother says once she has cleaned the bite and has put a brightly colored bandage over it.

“There was no need to get so worked up over that,” she tells him softly, pushing black hair from his eyes so she can see them more clearly.

_ “As long as I’m here, nothing will ever hurt you worse than a bruise, Tybalt.” _


	2. l'amore della famigila

He is sixteen years old when he sneaks out for the first time, and seventeen when he sneaks back in. He isn’t sure there could possibly have been a better way to spend his birthday.

He expects to sneak in, go to his room, and collapse in his bed without a word to anyone else. But when he steps inside the lights snap on and he knows he’s been caught red-handed. He’s entirely prepared to answer to Juliet’s nanny at best, and his uncle at worse.

But he is surprised to hear the soft voice of his cousin,  _ “Tybalt?” _

_ “Yes, Juliet. It’s me,” _ he tells her softly, hand nervously going to the back of his neck, the tips of his fingers delicately touching bruises left there. He hadn’t expected her to be awake.

_ “Where have you been? I’ve been worried.” _

He hadn’t expected her to be worried about him either. Wasn’t it he who was supposed to be worrying about her?

_ “I went out with Sampson, he wanted to get me drinks for my birthday,” _ he’s lying through his teeth, but she won’t know that. Worst case scenario, he has to tell Sampson where he actually went.

_ “Why not wait until tonight” _ she’s accusing him when she says that, calling his bluff.

_ “Since when did you get so smart?” _ he teases his cousin, allowing his hand to fall away from his neck.

_ “I’ve always been the smarter one, Dear Cousin,” _ it’s her turn to tease him, and he lets out an airy chuckle. Since when did his cousin have comebacks to his taunts?

_ “I don’t think that’s true, but if it helps you sleep at night I’ll let you believe it,” _ Tybalt says as he starts for the stairs to go to his room. He’s grateful that she’s dropped the subject of what he had left to do.

_ “Tybalt,” _ when she says his name he turns to face her fully, and it’s only then that she continues,  _ “are you okay? You’re covered in bruises.” _

He freezes where he stands, not sure what to tell his cousin. It is not his place to talk to her about  _ that _ . But she is thirteen and he knows she knows nothing about being a woman. Whether she knows or not, he hears the questions she asks her nurse when she leaves her door open ( even when it’s just a crack ). He knows she doesn’t know about sex, and he knows girls who talk about how this ignorance left them in awful positions when they got older. Living in Verona is beautiful, but the tourist can be dangerous.

He is caught between a rock and a hard place. He feels the urge to protect her, to talk to her about this, because she could never know these bruises aren’t like the others he’s come back with without that knowledge. But he also feels the need to keep the secret and let someone else tell her, it’s not his job. He decides to lie.

It is not his place to tell her about such things.

_ “I got into a fight, Sampson says I’m not a fun drunk,” _ is what he tells her, absently touching one of the larger spots on his neck.

_ “Oh. Should I get you ice?” _

_ “No, Jules. You should go to bed. Does Uncle know you’re awake?” _

Juliet now looks bashful herself, and nervously laughs at the idea. He knows then that her parents have no idea she’s waited up for him, and he almost appreciates the sentiment. But he knows her father’s wrath better than anyone and motions for her to come with him up the stairs.

_ “I’m home now, turn out the lights and go to bed.” _

__ She looks defeated as she flicks the light switch off and follows his lead. 

_ “Tybalt, why do you always come home bruised?” _

The question takes him aback, their hands are on the knobs to their respective doors across the hall from each other, but he has to turn and face her.

_ “I don’t always come back bruised,” _ it’s all he can think of to argue back. And hearing it spoken out loud, he knows it’s a lame response.

_ “You do. It makes me worry.” _

He feels suddenly bad that he worries his younger cousin. He stays quiet for a long time as he considers the words he wants to say, trying to find what would be best to tell her. 

_ “I’m sorry, Juliet. I promise I’ll stop getting into so many fights. Now go to bed,”  _ he tells her, waving his hand as if to usher her into her room.

The next time he sneaks out, and then back in, he does so through her balcony on her request. 


	3. l'amore di un nemico

He is eighteen, but believes himself to be something closer to fifty, when the boy who he once said he’d marry finds him sitting in a place where he feeds cats every night. Mercutio has found him here before, but after their fight Tybalt wasn’t sure he wanted Mercutio to come back.

Until now that is.

He is eighteen years old and has bruises littering his skin from where he and the boy looking at him fought only a few nights ago.

But he has a bleeding nose and mouth from a fight with a man who works for his uncle who was much too vulgar in the way he spoke about a girl who is only barely entering womanhood. Much too vulgar in the way he speaks about a child, and Tybalt hates him for it. He hates that it is a fight they say he lost, because his Uncle made him stand down. A fight that he could have won if he had just been a little taller, a little stronger maybe.

But because he’d rather pretend to be angry at the boy looking at him than accept that he needs to apologize for the words he said he antagonizes the taller man ( man by legal standards, but boy by his uncle’s ).

_ “You know, I was just trying to be your  _ friend _ , don’t you?”  _ Mercutio hisses after one of Tybalt’s remarks hit a wrong nerve.

Tybalt flinches back from what sounds like venom in Mercutio's words, and his jaw sets. He doesn’t realize that he has taken the cigarette he was smoking and put it out on the ground.

_ “Be my friend? Is that what you thought?” _ Tybalt asks, his voice gravely low,  _ “Oh yes. Let me, Mercutio,  _ King of Dogs _ , befriend t _ he King of Cats! _ It’ll be a grand idea, won’t it Romeo? We’ll just ignore what his uncle thinks of it! Just ignore what everyone says about it! Let me, one of Verona’s pride and joys, befriend  _ Verona’s greatest disappointment!” Tybalt has not realized that his voice has risen to shouting in his mocking of one of the only three people whom he believes could ever even remotely tolerate him.

It is so loud it echoes back at him, the echo brings him down from his adrenaline high and only then does he realize he has stood up. But what he realizes first is that he has begun to cry.

So he now stands bleeding, bruised, and crying in front of the last person he wanted to see him this way.

He is at the end of his rope, and he cannot take another shove. If this is one of God’s tests, he wishes the lord would count him as failed. Today is not his day.

He sits back down and will not look at Mercutio.

_ “If that’s how you feel, Tybalt, then I’ll leave,” _ Mercutio says, his voice barely above a whisper.

_ “Leave if you want. I can’t stop you. You’re not my dog to hold on a leash,” _ Tybalt says, voice still aggressive. He still will not look at Mercutio. 

He does not turn to look until he hears footsteps approaching, and comes face to face with the man he just told to leave. For a moment they say nothing as Mercutio undoes the flannel around his waist, and gently brings the sleeve of it to gently clean Tybalt’s face.

_ “My King of Cats, you’ve made a mess of yourself,” _ Mercutio whispers to him.

_ “I know,” _ Tybalt whispers back, reaching up to grab Mercutio’s wrist as the other dabs over a sensitive spot of skin. 

They say nothing else the rest of the afternoon, and only exist in a vague understanding of each other as the sun sets over Verona.


	4. un amore inaspettato

He is not quite nineteen years old when he sits in the alley where he feeds Verona’s stray cats, his back rested against the wall and his head pounding. He is not quite nineteen years old and has wrecked the car he was given as a gift from his uncle three years ago, and almost killed a boy he is so deeply in love with that it hurts. 

But the boy from across the street is also almost nineteen years old, and somehow has found him. Mercutio has probably told him where he could find Tybalt, lord knows Mercutio comes here enough. 

“What are you doing here, Benvolio?” Tybalt asks, somewhat bored. He is tired and cannot take the blame from a Montague again. He blames himself enough for what happened to Mercutio that he doesn’t need to hear it from another living soul. He blames himself enough for the whole city. 

“I’ve come looking for you,” the Montague cousin says, coming beside where Tybalt sits. He does not even ask to sit down, just does it. 

“Why have you come looking for me? Your cousin has already said enough,” Tybalt tells Benvolio, not looking at the other boy and instead looking off into the sunset clouds. 

“I wanted to know if you were alright. No one’s heard from you since the accident.”

To say he is shocked when Benvolio confesses this is an understatement. He is completely appalled that a Montague cares to ask him if he is alright. 

“I’m fine. If not a little sore,” he answered dryly, still not facing his counterpart.

“Well, that’s good. It’s better than Mercutio, he’s got physical therapy,” Benvolio explains, and Tybalt is surprised that he does not hear resentment in the other man’s voice. If he were Benvolio he would hate himself, hell he does it even without being Benvolio. To hear that Mercutio needs physical therapy actually hurts him inside. 

Before he can say anything else though, Benvolio adds, “You should go see him, talk to him. He misses you.”

“And why would he miss me when he’s got you?” When Tybalt speaks this time, he does turn to look at Benvolio. 

“Because he loves you. You’re his moon, sun, and stars. He’s convinced you hang the heavens every night. He thinks of you as one thought of Gods.”

“But have you seen the way he looks at you? He stares at you as though you’re some painting in a museum, as though he’d stare at you and only you even when surrounded by the works of Da Vinci and Michelangelo,” Tybalt has never thought of himself and Benvolio similar until now. 

Why would he?

On one hand you have smart, calm, peaceful Benvolio who wants nothing more than to keep the peace in Verona. Benvolio, who Verona loves.

And then on the other you have fiery, aggressive, and hostile Tybalt who has never turned down a fight in his life. Tybalt, who Verona hates. 

They are the exact opposite of each other in so many ways, Tybalt has never stopped to think of how they might be similar to one another.. 

But now as they talk there is a silent understanding that they are both in love with the same boy, and both feel he loves the other more. 

Now they sit with a new understanding of each other as they talk for the first time without thinking of the feud. 

It is the first time Tybalt has let someone who is not Mercutio see the side of him reserved for only the people he holds nearest and dearest to his heart. 

It is the first time that someone who is not Juliet or Mercutio sees him at his most vulnerable.


	5. amore per se stessi

“How was confession,” Tybalt’s aunt asked as he came into the kitchen, where she stood stirring a drink of some sort.

“It was fine,” he answered dryly, wiping at the blood still coming from his nose. 

“What happened to you? I know Father didn’t do that.”

For a moment, Tybalt considered lying to her. A lie would be the easiest way out of the conversation, would it not?   
“I ran into the Montagues,” he lied. It was easier to tell her that, to make her think he hated them as much as his uncle. How could he ever confess what he, Mercutio, and Benvolio were in private? And how could he tell her that he had gotten into a fight with a tourist who had said something cross to his Montague lover?

“Ran into the Montagues? You mean Romeo and Benvolio?” As her mother spoke, Juliet came into the room. Perhaps worried about what could have transpired between her lover and cousin.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Tybalt answered.

“Well, I hope they look better than you. We can’t have you causing any more problems for your uncle.”

Tybalt and Juliet both seemed taken aback by what the matriarch of the Capulet household had said. Tybalt, unlike his cousin, could take no more prodding from the day. He had reached the end of the rope, and his aunt’s comment was the one that did it.

“Cause him any more problems? Is that all I am to you? A  _ problem? _ ” He asked, his voice rising with each word. 

His aunt said nothing, only continued to stir her tea or coffee or whatever the hell it was. This did nothing to alleviate Tybalt’s anger.

“I have done  _ everything _ the two of you have ever asked of me! I have given up the one thing I have ever wanted, and you call me your problem?” He shouted, voice loud enough that Juliet flinched, tears stinging his eyes.

“And what was that? What could be the ‘only’ thing you have ever wanted?” His aunt’s voice was uninterested as she spoke, not even bothering to look up at him.

“What do you think,” he asked her bitterly, attempting to swallow the lump forming in his throat.

His aunt said nothing, nor did his cousin.

“You are the only mother I have ever known. Was there a time, even in its smallest measurement, that you ever loved me at all?” His voice no longer boomed like thunder in the room. He asked it as quietly as a mouse would ask a tomcat to spare its life.

“How can one love a pebble in their shoe?” Was his aunt’s departing words.

Tybalt could only stand there, shocked. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. So he closed it lamely and wiped at his face to clear it of the blood, dirt, and tears. In doing so, he managed to stain the only white shirt he owned.

“Tyb,” it was Juliet who spoke first of the cousins left in the room.

He said nothing though, only swallowed the stubborn lump still in his throat and looked up towards the ceiling. He thought briefly of his mother. No matter how much time passed, he could still clearly remember her face, her voice.

He could clearly hear her, in the deep ocean of his early memories, telling him,  _ “When you feel as though you’re going to cry my sweet Tybalt, save face by looking up and counting the stars.” _

But there were no stars to count in the middle of the day, in the middle of the kitchen. And even if there had been, he clearly remembered how slurred her words had been when she said it, clearly remember his father’s drunken laughter in the background as their friends begged her to come back to the room. He could vividly remember  _ why _ he had been crying (  _ “Mama, it’s dark- I’m scared!” _ ) and he could vividly remember how he had not slept that night in the pitch-black bedroom because neither of his parents had offered him a gentle touch or comforting words. Neither of them had offered to be the ones to protect him from the evil thing lurking in the closet, and instead became the thing hiding under the bed.

The full memory had taken out whatever motherly love had been there, and to think about it made him flinch away from the gentle hand on his arm.

“Tybalt, she didn’t mean that,” Juliet told him softly.

“Yes she did, Jules,” he whispered to his cousin, looking down to her, “because who could love Verona’s Greatest Disappointment?” 

His voice cracked as he spoke, and by the way, she looked he knew Juliet was seconds away from hugging him. 

Instead of letting her, he gently moved her hand from his arm and walked away to his room.

He realized now that he had not smoked a cigarette in days, and the realization made him crave one. 

So he climbed out his own window and smoked on the way to Mercutio’s.

{}{}{}{}{}

He watches them in the same way he watches fire. With a morbid sense of curiosity, but with caution as if he’s afraid to get too close. After all, was it not curiosity that killed the cat? It was if he’s afraid somehow they will no longer be a metaphor for fire and somehow will quite literally burn his skin if he touches theirs.

They are beautiful in a way he has never quite known beauty to be. He’s always had a very trivial idea of beauty. He’s just learning beauty is not always the men and women you see on a movie screen but can, in fact, be dew clinging to grass in the early mornings. Or how rain trails down your car window in the middle of a storm. Beauty is not as trivial as humans.

He watches them as you would listen to a band. He watches them as a whole and then takes the time to pick out the finer details of  _ why _ what he has seen is beautiful.

On one hand, you have Mercutio. Mercutio, who lights up every room he has ever entered in all his years of living. He laughs in a way that makes Tybalt think of the finest songs, and he talks in a way that makes Tybalt wonder what any new song could possibly come up with to compare. He is the moon, the sun, and every star from this galaxy and the next. It makes Tybalt wonder what God thought that the same world that needed the mountains, oceans, and Mercutio also needed one of him. Mercutio is beautiful in the bold way that ancient artwork is. His very existence makes Tybalt think of every piece of art he has ever had to study, every poem he has ever memorized, every language that man has ever known, and every piece of music he has ever

played. He is the finest solo Tybalt has ever heard. It's why Tybalt thinks of him as he does breathing because he could never imagine a Verona where Mercutio was not there.

He is the brass, the woodwinds, and the string instruments of a symphony. 

But on the other hand, there’s Benvolio. Benvolio, who seems to have never lived a day in his life for himself and himself only. When he speaks, Tybalt stops all motion because he knows he will hold onto every word as though it were the last sound he may ever hear. His very existence is simple, bordering the realms of boring, to anyone from the outside looking in. But to Tybalt, who has never taken a day in his life to exist in the way Benvolio does, it is more fascinating than anything he has ever known. Where Mercutio is beautiful in a bold way, Benvolio is beautiful in a silent way. He is like the sunrise and the sunsets, the flowers that grow in his aunt’s garden, the way birds sing in the morning. Tybalt could try to imagine a world, not just a Verona, without Benvolio. And as possible as it may be to picture, he could never dream of living there. To live in a world without him would be to live in a world without mountain ranges or oceans. Benvolio was beautiful in a way he seemed so painfully unaware of. 

If Mercutio were the brass, woodwinds, and strings of the symphony then Benvolio was the percussion. The percussion whom everyone seemed to find so easy to ignore, but without them, the whole thing would collapse into chaos. 

And together, they were finer than any melody Tybalt had ever heard, and that he could ever dream of. They were radiant just by existing with each other. When they laughed it sent Tybalt into a feeling of euphoria he had never known to exist. If they were beautiful apart, then Tybalt would never have the words to describe them together. It made him wonder what he could have possibly done in his life to have earned the pleasure of knowing the two of them, much less existing with them as he did so freely. 

It was rare for Tybalt to lay in between the two of them, he much preferred to be on the outside of either one. Being in between them at night was too hot. Plus, if he had a nightmare it was easier to leave if he were on the outside. Easier to slip out of bed and go for a walk into town without waking them up.

But tonight he had crawled between them with little discussion. He knew they had shared a look that silently asked  _ Do you know? _ but they had not dared to ask it out loud.

It was a bad day. It was a day where he did not feel that he deserved their love, a day where his very mind made him so exhausted he could hardly function. Days as bad as this came rarely, but when they did it was obvious. Obviously in the way, Tybalt let things go, with little to say. Obvious in the way he would come in with the smell of cigarettes clinging to his skin and breath. Obvious because of how he stayed in the shower for hours, only to come out with his skin redder than a sunburn. Neither Benvolio nor Mercutio had said a word. He wasn't sure whose fingers had started playing with his hair, just like he wasn't sure he put on the movie. But it wasn't long until he fell asleep.

That had been hours ago, and as he was waking up he discovered he had missed dinner. He found himself caught in the middle of them, their arms both lazily draped over him and barely grazing each other.

He almost wanted to move, but could not bring himself to do it.

Because even when they were asleep, he looked at them as he did fire. With a morbid sense of curiosity, but also a look of caution. After all, was it not curiosity that killed the cat? But if he 

thought they might erupt into flames themselves and burn him should he touch their skin, he may as well consider himself to be burned alive. He knew every inch of them almost as well as he knew every inch of himself. Between the midnight drives, dances on the beach, and the nights like this where he had crawled between them, there was very little about the two men that Tybalt did not know. 

Tybalt could think of no place he would rather be, Heaven included. 

**Author's Note:**

> So !
> 
> This is kind of an alternate, side story type of thing to my other series. The other one will focus on just Tybalt and Mercutio, but I've been really into plotting for Benvolio/Mercutio/Tybalt so ,, here's this. 
> 
> I might compile all of my ideas into one big story one day to make like a genuine Shakespeare spinoff but I don't know. Let me know if I should I guess. 
> 
> Anyway !  
> Thank you so much for reading ^^'


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